daresay. Dropped off! [Fiercely, as the knocking recommences.] Why don’t you get up and let your uncle in? after me waiting up all night for him! [She pushes her rudely off the sofa.] There: I’ll open the door: much good you are to wait up. Go and mend that fire a bit. [The girl, cowed and wretched, goes to the fire and puts a log on. Mrs. Dudgeon unbars the door and opens it, letting into the stuffy kitchen a little of the freshness and a great deal of the chill of the dawn, also her second son Christy, a fattish, stupid, fair-haired, round-faced man of about 22, muffled in a plaid shawl and grey overcoat. He hurries, shivering, to the fire, leaving Mrs. Dudgeon to shut the door.]
CHRISTY. [At the fire.] F—f—f! but it is cold. [Seeing the girl, and staring lumpishly at her.] Why, who are you?
THE GIRL. [Shyly.] Essie.
MRS. DUDGEON. Oh you may well ask. [To Essie.] Go to your room, child, and lie down since you haven’t feeling enough to keep you awake. Your history isn’t fit for your own ears to hear.
ESSIE. I—
MRS. DUDGEON. [Peremptorily.] Don’t answer me, Miss; but show your obedience by doing what I tell you. [Essie, almost in tears, crosses the room to the door near the sofa.] And don’t forget your prayers. [ESSIE goes out.] She’d have gone to bed last night just as if nothing had happened if I’d let her.
CHRISTY. [Phlegmatically.] Well, she can’t be expected to feel Uncle Peter’s death like one of the family.
MRS. DUDGEON. What are you talking about, child? Isn’t she his daughter—the punishment of his wickedness and shame? [She assaults her chair by sitting down.]
CHRISTY. [Staring.] Uncle Peter’s daughter!
MRS. DUDGEON. Why else should she be here? D’ye think I’ve not had enough trouble and care put upon me bringing up my own girls, let alone you and your good-for-nothing brother, without having your uncle’s bastards—
CHRISTY. [Interrupting her with an apprehensive glance at the door by which Essie went out.] Sh! She may hear you.
MRS. DUDGEON. [Raising her voice.] Let her hear me. People who fear God don’t fear to give the devil’s work its right name. [Christy, soullessly indifferent to the strife of Good and Evil, stares at the fire, warming himself.] Well, how long are you going to stare there like a stuck pig? What news have you for me?
CHRISTY. [Taking off his hat and shawl and going to the rack to hang them up.] The minister is to break the news to you. He’ll be here presently.
MRS. DUDGEON. Break what news?
CHRISTY. [Standing on tiptoe, from boyish habit, to hang his hat up, though he is quite tall enough to reach the peg, and speaking with callous placidity, considering the nature of the announcement.] Father’s dead too.
MRS. DUDGEON. [Stupent.] Your father!
CHRISTY. [Sulkily, coming back to the fire and warming himself again, attending much more to the fire than to his mother.] Well, it’s not my fault. When we got to Nevinstown we found him ill in bed. He didn’t know us at first. The minister sat up with him and sent me away. He died in the night.
MRS. DUDGEON. [Bursting into dry angry tears.] Well, I do think this is hard on me—very hard on me. His brother, that was a disgrace to us all his life, gets hanged on the public gallows as a rebel; and your father, instead of staying at home where his duty was, with his own family, goes after him and dies, leaving everything on my shoulders. After sending this girl to me to take care of, too! [She plucks her shawl vexedly over her ears.] It’s sinful, so it is; downright sinful.
CHRISTY. [With a slow, bovine cheerfulness, after a pause.] I think it’s going to be a fine morning, after all.
MRS. DUDGEON. [Railing at him.] A fine morning! And your father newly dead! Where’s your feelings, child?
CHRISTY. [Obstinately.] Well, I didn’t mean any harm. I suppose a man may make a remark about the weather even if his father’s dead.
MRS. DUDGEON. [Bitterly.] A nice comfort my children are to me! One son a fool, and the other a lost sinner that’s left his home to live with smugglers and gypsies and villains, the scum of the earth! [Someone knocks.]
CHRISTY. [Without moving.] That’s the minister.
MRS. DUDGEON. [Sharply.] Well, aren’t you going to let Mr. Anderson in? [Christy goes sheepishly to the door. Mrs. Dudgeon buries her face in her hands, as it is her duty as a widow to be overcome with grief. Christy opens the door, and admits the minister, Anthony Anderson, a shrewd, genial, ready Presbyterian divine of about 50, with something of the authority of his profession in his bearing. But it is an altogether secular authority, sweetened by a conciliatory, sensible manner not at all suggestive of a quite thoroughgoing other-worldliness. He is a strong, healthy man, too, with a thick, sanguine neck; and his keen, cheerful mouth cuts into somewhat fleshy corners. No doubt an excellent parson, but still a man capable of making the most of this world, and perhaps a little apologetically conscious of getting on better with it than a sound Presbyterian ought.]
ANDERSON. [To Christy, at the door, looking at Mrs. Dudgeon whilst he takes off his cloak.] Have you told her?
CHRISTY. She made me. [He shuts the door; yawns; and loafs across to the sofa where he sits down and presently drops off to sleep.]
[Anderson looks compassionately at Mrs. Dudgeon. Then he hangs his cloak and hat on the rack. Mrs. Dudgeon dries her eyes and looks up at him.]
ANDERSON. Sister: the Lord has laid his hand very heavily upon you.
MRS. DUDGEON. [With intensely recalcitrant resignation.] It’s His will, I suppose; and I must bow to it. But I do think it hard. What call had Timothy to go to Springtown, and remind everybody that he belonged to a man that was being hanged?—and. [Spitefully.] that deserved it, if ever a man did.
ANDERSON. [Gently.] They were brothers, Mrs. Dudgeon.
MRS. DUDGEON. Timothy never acknowledged him as his brother after we were married: he had too much respect for me to insult me with such a brother. Would such a selfish wretch as Peter have come thirty miles to see Timothy hanged, do you think? Not thirty yards, not he. However, I must bear my cross as best I may: least said is soonest mended.
ANDERSON. [Very grave, coming down to the fire to stand with his back to it.] Your eldest son was present at the execution, Mrs. Dudgeon.
MRS. DUDGEON. [Disagreeably surprised.] Richard?
ANDERSON. [Nodding.] Yes.
MRS. DUDGEON. [Vindictively.] Let it be a warning to him. He may end that way himself, the wicked, dissolute, godless—[She suddenly stops; her voice fails; and she asks, with evident dread.] Did Timothy see him?
ANDERSON. Yes.
MRS. DUDGEON. [Holding her breath.] Well?
ANDERSON. He only saw him in the crowd: they did not speak. [Mrs. Dudgeon, greatly relieved, exhales the pent up breath and sits at her ease again.] Your husband was greatly touched and impressed by his brother’s awful death. [Mrs. Dudgeon sneers. Anderson breaks off to demand with some indignation.] Well, wasn’t it only natural, Mrs. Dudgeon? He softened towards his prodigal son in that moment. He sent for him to come to see him.
MRS. DUDGEON. [Her alarm renewed.] Sent for Richard!
ANDERSON.
